"Everyone must love him," protested Dinah. "Who could help it?"
"I wonder," said Isabel slowly, "if he will ever meet anyone who will love him best of all."
Dinah was suddenly conscious of a rush of blood to her face. She knew not wherefore, but she felt it beat in her temples and sing in her ears. "Oh, surely--surely!" she stammered in confusion.
Isabel looked beyond her. "You know, Dinah," she said, her voice very low, "Scott is a man with an almost infinite greatness of soul. I don't know if you realize it. I have thought sometimes that you did. But there are very few--very few--who do."
"I know he is great," whispered Dinah. "I told him so almost--almost the first time I saw him."
Isabel's smile was very tender. She stooped and gathered Dinah to her bosom. "Oh, my dear," she murmured, "never prefer the tinsel to the true gold! He is far, far the greatest man I know. And you--you will never meet a greater."
Dinah clung to her in quick responsiveness. Her strange agitation was subsiding, but she could feel the blood yet pulsing in her veins. "I know it," she whispered. "I am sure of it. He is very much to you, dear, isn't he?"
"For years he has been my all," Isabel said. "Listen a moment! I will tell you something. In the first dreadful days of my illness, I was crazy with trouble, and--and they bound me to keep me from violence. I have never forgotten it. I never shall. Then--he came. He was very young at that time, only twenty-three. He had his life before him, and mine--mine was practically over. Yet he gave up everything--everything for my sake. He took command; he banished all the horrible people who had taken possession of me. He gave me freedom, and he set himself to safe-guard me. He brought me home. He was with me night and day, or if not actually with me, within call. He and Biddy between them brought me back. They watched me, nursed me, cared for me. Whenever my trouble was greater than I could bear, he was always there to help me. He never left me; and gradually he became so necessary to me that I couldn't contemplate life without him. I have been terribly selfish." A low sob checked her utterance for a moment, and Dinah's young arms tightened. "I let my grief take hold of me to the exclusion of everything else. I didn't see--I didn't realize--the sacrifice he was making. For years I took it all as a right, living in my fog of misery and blind to all beside. But now--now at last--thanks to you, little one, whom I nearly killed--my eyes are open once more. The fog has rolled away. No, I can never be happy. I am of those who wait. But I will never again, God helping me, deprive others of happiness. Scott shall live his own life now. His devotion to me must come to an end. My greatest wish in life now is that he may meet a woman worthy of him, who will love him as he deserves to be loved, before I climb the peaks of Paradise and find my beloved in the dawning." Isabel's voice sank. She pressed Dinah close against her heart. "It will not be long," she whispered. "I have had a message that there is no mistaking, I know it will not be long. But oh, darling, I do want to see him happy first."